


The Darkness Consumes Us All

by KermitSaysGayRights



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, No warnings we die like men, Penelope is the teams light, i feel bad for everyone, im sorry, kind of, not really - Freeform, sad shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:01:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27268411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KermitSaysGayRights/pseuds/KermitSaysGayRights
Summary: Penelope gets shot, the team copes by themselves while they await the news of their friend.
Relationships: Penelope Garcia & Aaron Hotchner, Penelope Garcia & David Rossi, Penelope Garcia & Derek Morgan, Penelope Garcia & Emily Prentiss, Penelope Garcia & Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, Penelope Garcia & Spencer Reid
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	The Darkness Consumes Us All

**Author's Note:**

> hehe i’m sorry i had to hurt penelope this time, she didn’t deserve it :(
> 
> tw time: mention of vomiting, guns, blood

This wasn’t supposed to happen, not to her, not to Penelope.

She was just doing her job, walking back to the station where the team was working when she saw him. He was dressed in all black but that wasn’t what she noticed, he fit the description of the unsub to the letter. She tried to run, yell for someone but she stood in place, her feet didn’t dare move an inch.

When she saw him reach for his backpack, she knew what was happening but there was no time. 

_BANG_

The last thing she remembered was Derek’s face hovering over her, he was saying something but she couldn’t make it out. His eyes were watery, she wanted to wipe his tears but she couldn’t move her hands. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t.

She could recall the brief moment of someone telling her to stay awake but then it went dark. She didn’t feel warm or airy but she felt cold. Not the type of cold where you shiver but the one where emptiness resides within you. 

She wanted to yell for Derek, for anyone really but it was just _dark._

———

Derek paced down up and down the waiting room, he wanted for someone to tell him something, anything. He could still feel her blood slipping in between his fingers. Her bleary eyes closing still played each time he closed his own. 

How was he going to keep going without her smile and witty banter. Was this supposed to be the end of it all? 

The end of her or the end of him?

Someone needed to tell him something, _anything_ before he broke anymore.

“Pen can’t-“ Emily choked back a sob. “She’s not going anywhere, she can’t. Penelope is always there, i’m not losing her now...” Her voice tapered off as she got up, she couldn’t be there.

She desperately wanted to run and not think twice about what she’d leave behind. Instead she stood outside the hospital, yelling into the wind. People stared and whispered but she couldn’t care more than she would of before it all happened. 

Emily wanted it all to just _stop_ , it never works out that way does it?

It always seemed to help to yell and scream into the air even if she knew it wouldn’t do anything. That’s what she always did, scream, yell and kick her way out of the dark. She wished she could do the same for her, it was out of her hands, it’s _always_ out of her hands.

———

Jennifer barely made it ten minutes before she had to leave. She took off in a dead sprint down the hospital corridor when she got out of sight. 

She practically broke the door down of the nearest bathroom stall. She purged everything she could before she was dry heaving over the bowl. Whatever _coping_ she could call this wasn’t working and she new that. All JJ could do now was _wait_ and dammit she hated waiting.

Nothing good ever happened when she waited, it was always something, something always had to give. Penelope was laying on table being cut open and all she could do was sit there and sob against a bathroom stall. 

When did she become this useless and how does she stop?

Outside the bathroom Hotch paced the hallways. He failed her, he was supposed to keep her safe and he _failed_.

Hotch tried so hard to protect her from the horrors they faced everyday and everywhere. He never mentioned the color that seeped out of her office even if he got reprimanded for letting her “disrupt the workplace”. 

He had one damn promise to keep, “don’t let the darkness consume them all”.

Who was he if he let their light slip away, who was he if he couldn’t keep one promise.

———

Rossi couldn’t move. He stared at the same tile with his hands supporting his head. 

He told himself early on to not get attached, you get attached and you get hurt. By the second week he was willing to lay his life down to save a single member of _their_ team. They were team, they’re still a team and teams don’t give up on eachother.

So he’s just going to keep staring at that one tile till Penelope makes it out of that room.

Beside him Spencer didn’t know what to do. He’s no good at comforting anyone, he can’t walk into that room and save his friend, so what was he supposed to do?

There’s no way to know what to do, no one can tell him, not even himself. His mind still flew a mile a minute making up statistics he didn’t want to know. That was the issue he didn’t want to _know_.

All he needed was for the thoughts to stop for a minute so he could breathe. His mother always said his mind was a gift but it almost never felt like that. He kept drowning in his own thoughts, in his own mind. 

He never slipped away though, he just stayed in the darkness with water burning his lungs. 

———

Emily was the first back, the cool December air called her to make the trek back, any longer she waited she’d be blue in the face. She took the seat farthest from the group, she couldn’t bear to look at them right now. She bit her nails this time out of fear.

Next was Hotch, he stood at the window watching the trees sway in the breeze before resuming his pacing this time in the waiting room. He couldn’t stop moving anymore, Penelope always said because he was like a shark and die if he couldn’t stay warm. She always did that, she always made the smallest of gestures to keep people safe from _themselves._

She was almost never in the field, she couldn’t carry a gun, she was scared half to death by anything with more than four legs yet she kept them safe. She’d pull them out if they fell to deep in, she was their little night light scaring away the monsters. 

Penelope wasn’t afraid to run into the dark waving a flashlight just so they could find their way back to her. She wasn’t ever afraid to do what she had to, to save them.

She was the bravest team member they had and they were not just about to let her die on that table by herself.

———

JJ’s heels clicked down the hallway as she made her way back to the group. She had to be calm, they needed her to be calm, so that’s what she’d be. Her eyes were still rimmed with red but she kept her composure without wavering.

She took her seat next to Rossi letting Emily have her breathing room. No one even moved when she walked in, not even a glance. They were all frozen, the click of her heels on the tile still echoed in their ears. She watched the clock tick by, slowly passing each line on its way towards a darker hour.

Morgan kept pacing up and down, up and down. 

Reid’s foot tapped on beat with the clock.

Emily cracked her knuckles, bit at her nails, then back to her knuckles all over again.

Hotch rubbed his hands over and over to no end.

Rossi stayed still, perfectly still, his eyes never moved from that one tile.

Then the soft pad of shoes coming down the hallway, not heels this time, work shoes.

———

The room went perfectly still again, all their eyes snapped to the women dressed in a white coat. Her nails tapped on the clipboard, she looked down then up.

Finally her words broke,

“I have news for the family of Penelope Garcia..”

———

_ click, clack, click, clack _

The door swung open and there she was, her breathing faint, only heard between the beeps of her monitor. Her cheeks still held their rosy color, the rest of her face bared no color. Even her lip tint had been wiped away, maybe by the snow, maybe by a surgeon.

Nonetheless they all piled in, their world a little lighter and their chests a little less heavy.

**Author's Note:**

> so uh a little bit of an open ending but not really!! dw she’s alive, she pulled through, what a champ! what’d ya think???


End file.
